Final Fixes Reborn

[Calavente]

Re Magic & Capture


capture
currently, in some mods, catapults are capturable, and some ships. it's not a real issue ; further, workers, slaves & settlers are capturable.
the difference between a military unit and ships is that ships are HUGE assets.. and that the capability comes more from the "assets" than from the "people". wheras for units, the capability comes first from the people and their training.
and in real life sailors/pirates/privateers...etc all tried to capture ships if they could, either to re-sell coming back at home, or to use for themselves.

re-magic.

every civ has mana, so every civ could get mana-promotion on their ships, so I don't see the issue.
my proposal was dual:
- propose variations to the arcane barges: mage ships (like adept & mage, they can learn spells and specialise): it's complexe but fun. (and you say that smaller countries would not have the same versatility.. but it's the same for the adepts/mage units)
- allow normal vessels to get arcane "improvement"... in the same way that units can get bless/dance of blades/poison/enchanted blade/haste/regeneration/ or magic immune (some by receiving a buff or by buying themselves), I will find it interesting that ships can be thusly "blessed" by at least 1 magical attribute, if you have the right promotion (combat 2 ? 3? other), and the right tech (sorcery.?) and the right manas.
--> bring magic to the ships !

 

[PPQ_Purple]

Here is my suggestion for how to do Arcane Naval Units:

1. Have two ships Arcane Barge A and Arcane Barge B (names pending)
   
   
2. A is a mid game unit having roughly the same requirement tier as the Carrack and Galleas.
   But with the same tech that gives you mages being part of the requirement.
   
   
3. B is a late game unit having roughly the same requirement tier as frigates but again with a magic tech in there.
   
   
4. Do not have any further naval arcane units unless absolutely nessecary for the lore of the civilization in question. Examples of this include some of the unique flagships planned for the Lanun, possibly something for the Amurites and that's about it.
   
   We do not need many ships. It is better to have few ships but have them be customizable.
   
   
5. Magic ships start with Channeling I and II respectively and 1 free promotion slot. Same as the adept/mage line.
   
   
6. Create a new set of spells available only to naval units with channeling.
   Some existing spells can be adapted to this role but others might need changes or new spells.
   
   We can and should discuss these separately.
   
   
7. Ship Capture:
   1. Create a new crew promotion that allows your ship to capture defeated enemy ships.
      
      The reason for a new promotion and one that competes with other crew promotions is balance and lore. It represents that your ship is transporting extra marines and taking care to capture the enemy ship and not just sink it.
      
      We could also optionally just include ship capture in the existing combat crew promotion (what ever the name is, the little sword icon). Since that one seems leas competitive right now and could use a bust.
      
      
   2. Captured ships get a promotion that decreases their combat effectiveness in some major way but not their movement.
      
      This promotion is automatically removed when the ship is repaired to full HP (same as poison).
   
   
8. Add a new Master building called Master Shipwright.
   That way you can have additional customization for your ships but it would be locked behind a cost making it more balanced.
   1. Give it various mundane promotions to customize your ships.
      (I really want a Master Shipwright)
      
      
   2. Give it various magic related promotions that require you have specific mana.

 

[Calavente]

great recap.
I know I'm not the one coding the mod, but I totally align with you PPQ_Purple

and I forgot about the master craftsmen.
Of course that's the way to do it : a master craftsman for ship... with new sails, new oars, stronger mast, spare mast (for quicker repair), Greek fire : +1fire combat, enchanted sails: +1mvt (need air mana), enchanted hull : no terrain movement penalty (nature & water mana), Magical Space: cargo+1 (dimensional mana)...Etc)

 

[PPQ_Purple]

As far as upgrades go I'd start with designing the spells, 2 per school (1 lvl1 and 1 lvl2) and than do the effects later. I'll have some ideas up later today.

Alright, here are my ideas for it. Feel free to add or address it as it's just my thoughts.

Air: Existing ground spells work just fine.

Body:

1. I would suggest a healing spell for this slot. Just a flat out healing spell that heals units inside transports on the fleet containing this ship.
   
   
2. Existing ground spell (regeneration) work just fine. Again, same thing, apply regeneration to organic units carried on board the stack.

Chaos:

1. Existing ground spell dance of blades might work, but it's honestly massively underpowered on the ground as well. So I would give it a buff and than use it here as well but in a re fluffed version.
   Also, I would make it so that it only effects other ships if fired off from a ship.
   
   
2. ???

Death: I have no idea what to do here. Existing spells clearly won't work.

Dimension: I have no idea what to do here. Existing spells clearly won't work.

Earth: I have no idea what to do here. Existing spells clearly won't work.

Enchantment:

1. Existing ground spell (Enchanted Blade) work just fine.
   Also, I would make it so that it only effects other ships if fired off from a ship.
   
   
2. I would put the repair spell here. And make it available at level 1 for dwarven ships. Simply because I feel having the ability to repair your ships is essential somewhere in the magic line. And the dwarves can get the advantage of getting it sooner.

Entropy:

A sort of version of corrode might work here. As in, a strait up debuff spell of some sort to effect enemy fleets. And we could play around with the idea so that maybe the 1st tier debuffs movement speed and the second strength or something like that.
I basically think entropy should be the debuff school.​

Fire:

1. ???
2. Existing ground spell (fireball) work just fine.

Law: I have no idea what to do here. Existing spells clearly won't work.

Creation: I have no idea what to do here. Existing spells clearly won't work

Force: I have no idea what to do here. Existing ground spells would either be redundant or way OP.

Life: Existing ground spells work just fine.

Metamagic: Existing ground spells work just fine.

Mind:

Perhaps the original spells could work. Charm at least could be expected to work on enemy fleets without being overpowered.​

Nature:

I would suggest summon spells here. Summoning wildlife is fun.
Also possibly some sort of entanglement spell limited to coastal waters that stops ships in range from moving or slows them down greatly.​

Shadow:

1. I think blur works just fine
2. ???

Spirit: I have no idea what to do here. Existing spells clearly won't work.

Sun: Existing ground spells work just fine.

Water: I have no idea what to do here. Existing spells clearly won't work.

Ice: I have no idea what to do here. Existing spells clearly won't work.

Refined:

To balance the mechanos I would give them a haste equivalent on level 1 and repair on level 2.​

 

[vogtmurr]

It looks like you guys will have the arcane line well in hand. Some of the other mana types will need a unique ability.
I will focus on more 'mundane' units. But as was suggested, some of those ships can also have access to limited arcane abilities that reflect their particular civ, especially if they are interesting and unique, like maybe ice breaking for the Illians. (and it doesn't have to be arcane: skids that allow earlier ships like the trireme to cross floes, like ice yachts).I don't foresee UUs having decisive advantages just certain abilities that may reflect their terrain or culture, like having ports that would be ice-locked to normal ships.

I was going to move the arcane 'mage' barge up to 9 str with no cargo in base config, as a reference point. I understand that advanced civs will be able to access more mana types just as mages do, as long as they don't immediately acquire cumulative advantages. That is, like mages, they have equal access to promotions, just more to pick and choose from.

On the capture mechanism, if that ability is to come free with a crew promotion, then lets call it Prize Crew; additional sailors who can get a salvageable ship underway with some offsetting stats. Lets fix the capture ratio at a low enough percentage that gaining an early edge doesn't see you doubling your fleet (and support costs) to the consternation of all your foes. Just for reference: there are some battles where nearly whole fleets were captured but rarely could they all be manned or made useful; and many were sunk or scuttled. I would refer to the battles that were fought rather evenly, as representative of the kind of odds and capture % achieved. And I peg that at about 20-25% just as it is for domination by druids and high priests, but here the ships have parity at the top of the food chain, unlike druids in direct combat.
On just one point I demur - a captured ship with 'damaged' promotion should indeed be one tile slower, until it reaches say 75% strength. But I realize this is inconsistent with all the ships damaged in normal combat. hmmmm.......thought provoking

Finally, I think I would like the carrack to access the guardsman promotion, just as an insurance against the eventual marksman promotion I am still struggling with. This enhances and adds uniqueness to the current role of carracks as slower defensive units, and can be carried over to the frigates and manowar.

Oh yeah, and master shipwright is a great idea. Are we good on this so far?

 

[Jerrian]

Just wanna say, big thx for the big improvements and work done lately .

My current feedback is, that I got much trouble with the last and current svn updates to start any game, the version before that ran mire stable for me.
I always delete cache running update and start a play now game to enable all options. I often get python bugs again (missing interface) while trying, the mad event bug "aerons chosen..." or crash to desktop.
Just tried 10x tries now after patching and wasn ´t able to proper start any just play game to switch to custom game after that ( I got no steam version) .

 

[PPQ_Purple]

It looks like you guys will have the arcane line well in hand. Some of the other mana types will need a unique ability.
I will focus on more 'mundane' units. But as was suggested, some of those ships can also have access to limited arcane abilities that reflect their particular civ, especially if they are interesting and unique, like maybe ice breaking for the Illians. (and it doesn't have to be arcane: skids that allow earlier ships like the trireme to cross floes, like ice yachts).I don't foresee UUs having decisive advantages just certain abilities that may reflect their terrain or culture, like having ports that would be ice-locked to normal ships.

That I imagine can be handled by free promotions based off race. Also we do need lots of suggestions for spells. Like 3/4 of entries in that table quote "I have no idea what to do here."

I was going to move the arcane 'mage' barge up to 9 str with no cargo in base config, as a reference point. I understand that advanced civs will be able to access more mana types just as mages do, as long as they don't immediately acquire cumulative advantages. That is, like mages, they have equal access to promotions, just more to pick and choose from.

I envisioned it working literally like a regular adept/mage. So they'd have to buy the spells as promotions.

On the capture mechanism, if that ability is to come free with a crew promotion, then lets call it Prize Crew; additional sailors who can get a salvageable ship underway with some offsetting stats. Lets fix the capture ratio at a low enough percentage that gaining an early edge doesn't see you doubling your fleet (and support costs) to the consternation of all your foes. Just for reference: there are some battles where nearly whole fleets were captured but rarely could they all be manned or made useful; and many were sunk or scuttled. I would refer to the battles that were fought rather evenly, as representative of the kind of odds and capture % achieved. And I peg that at about 20-25% just as it is for domination by druids and high priests, but here the ships have parity at the top of the food chain, unlike druids in direct combat.

A capture chance might not be a bad idea. Also maybe have the Lanun get a bonus to that. Than again maybe not as the Lanun can just flat out cheat and put a boarding party (the unit) on their transports and use that for guaranteed capture. Which, given the added cost and micro I feel is fair.

On just one point I demur - a captured ship with 'damaged' promotion should indeed be one tile slower, until it reaches say 75% strength. But I realize this is inconsistent with all the ships damaged in normal combat. hmmmm.......thought provoking

I figure that a "damaged" ship is actually a ship you took relatively intact but had to crew with a small detachment instead of a proper crew. Anything actually damaged would have to be scuttled. So it can run off but can't fight.

Bottom line is I basically think there should be nothing to stop it from running to the nearest port for repairs and that capturing a ship shouldn't mean your whole fleet has to start limping at its pace to protect it. But also that a captured ship shouldn't just join the battle fleet and start contributing in combat.

 

[black_imperator]

Just wanna say, big thx for the big improvements and work done lately .

My current feedback is, that I got much trouble with the last and current svn updates to start any game, the version before that ran mire stable for me.
I always delete cache running update and start a play now game to enable all options. I often get python bugs again (missing interface) while trying, the mad event bug "aerons chosen..." or crash to desktop.
Just tried 10x tries now after patching and wasn ´t able to proper start any just play game to switch to custom game after that ( I got no steam version) .

can you tell me which revision was fine and which are causing issues for you ?
plus some general information (what OS, the install path, whether you ran the game as admin)

Note that you can revert to an older revision, right click on the folder and choose svn then update to revision.

 

[vogtmurr]

...
A capture chance might not be a bad idea. Also maybe have the Lanun get a bonus to that. Than again maybe not as the Lanun can just flat out cheat and put a boarding party (the unit) on their transports and use that for guaranteed capture. Which, given the added cost and micro I feel is fair.

I figure that a "damaged" ship is actually a ship you took relatively intact but had to crew with a small detachment instead of a proper crew. Anything actually damaged would have to be scuttled. So it can run off but can't fight.

Bottom line is I basically think there should be nothing to stop it from running to the nearest port for repairs and that capturing a ship shouldn't mean your whole fleet has to start limping at its pace to protect it. But also that a captured ship shouldn't just join the battle fleet and start contributing in combat.

I think there is at least one other aquatic culture in the works that might have boarding and similar special abilities unique to the Lanun - hopefully diammetric opposites so there is some rivalry. Yes I accept the reasoning on captured movement, just as it is for wounded and damaged units, but a weakness or slow healing bonus would be appropriate. If capture ratio is a selectable option with no further modifiers we could fix it as high as 30%, with minor variances intrinsic to a few UUs. If there is to be another promotion available, maybe fix them both at 20%.
By the way - the ice mana ability could be slow at channeling 1, ships in range have to struggle with ice chunks and arctic headwinds, and summon iceberg at channeling 2, which you send crashing into an enemy hull.
I have to process the current list of suggestions into an updated outline, and deal with the tech/resource dependencies to space out development - so I will come back with something on that.

 

[Jerrian]

can you tell me which revision was fine and which are causing issues for you ?
plus some general information (what OS, the install path, whether you ran the game as admin)

Note that you can revert to an older revision, right click on the folder and choose svn then update to revision.

Hey,
- my game path is D:\Games\Civ4\Beyond the Sword\Mods\Ashes of Erebus
- not using Steam Version
- I run the AOE launcher as Admin
- Win 10 pro 64 bit

I checked into the svn table and noted that I got probably more updates at once as I did a short break, so I ´m pretty not sure which one is causing trouble now. I´m pretty sure I was fine until SVN Rev 323 with the new chislev module.
Now I often got missing interface and very often crashes to desktop when try to load a game, just tried loading a game from yesterday and got in 15 attempts 14 fails and only one time success. From my consideration it seems that when you load AOE via launcher, some data is not loaded well and that ´s causing the issues, but it ´s only a guess. When the app is running well and you manage to start/load a game it runs stable.
I ´ll convert to Rev 323 and do more testings.

 

[black_imperator]

try to run the BtS exe as admin too

 

[oldark]

Getting a crash to desktop with no error message in current save. I've replayed from as far as 8 turns back and the crash is consistent. Steam version with Rev 327 from svn. Attached a save file, crash will happen upon ending the turn.

 

[Nor'easter]

Has the Barbarian AI been changed significantly? I had a crazy large stack attack my capital fairly early in the game (see screenshot below).

 

[azatote]

Has Hafgan already cast his world spell? In a large map, a neighbor casting "For the Horde" is a massive barbarian generator (and you're lucky if there's no stoneskin ogre in the stack).

 

[Nor'easter]

Has Hafgan already cast his world spell? In a large map, a neighbor casting "For the Horde" is a massive barbarian generator (and you're lucky if there's no stoneskin ogre in the stack).

You might be right about that, especially since Hafgan turned out to be my neighbor to the East.

 

[Jerrian]

try to run the BtS exe as admin too

Already did, I tried to patch back to Rev 323 and now new games stuck at ca. 20% loading screen, I guess I crashed my AOE installation, I tried to patch back to Rev 328 but it doesn ´t help, well it´s not running anyway. :-( I ll reinstall and hopefully it will work like it has to be.

Has the Barbarian AI been changed significantly? I had a crazy large stack attack my capital fairly early in the game (see screenshot below)

I noticed the same, after the return of Drake Archeron barbarians are now more agressive and bult up crazy stacks, well I like it that way, I´m always playing with advanced barbarians,citys and agressive behaviour, but sometimes they take me out in the early games if I ´m unlucky and get their main attention.

 

[Jerrian]

Ist that errormessage any bad?

 

[black_imperator]

no, just a typo in the info file of the module, should have no impact.

 

[Jerrian]

no, just a typo in the info file of the module, should have no impact.

I deleted AOE reinstalled it and having no big issues anymore with ne newest svn version. Maybe something went wrong before with patching. Reinstall might help other ppl who suffer massive python bugs.

 

[PPQ_Purple]

I would like to mention something here which I personally feel might be interesting to discuss. And I basically want you guys opinion of it. As in, is it just me who has this experience and opinion or is it universal? I am not suggesting a change or saying it's a good idea though. Just providing my own observation to see what you guys think.

To put it very simply I find the speed of tech and thus unit tier progression to be somewhat imperfect. As in, the ratio of time you have to play with early vs mid vs late tier units just seems off to me.
If I set the game speed to be real slow, than the mid game lasts as long as it should, but the early game stage drags on far too long. And if I set the game to go fast enough for the early game to be reasonable than the mid game stage just zips by. Also, this is something I actually feel about vanilla CIV as well.

So am I the only one here who wishes that mid game lasted longer comparatively to the early and end game? Like, I almost want the game to drop a whole game speed in terms of research rate once I hit the first era transition.


PS. I am exclusively talking about the speed of technology gain and thus getting new unit types. I absolutely do not think that building units or buildings should last any longer than it already does. That would be very bad indeed.